Thirteen
by TwilightMoon317
Summary: If this is his last life, there is no one he would rather spend it with than his doctor. He's too old now, too bitter to say it, but he was once a Doctor as well. A series of WhoLock pieces.
1. His Last Life

_Can't have done, would have done, should have done..._

All things are hypothetical until they are fixed and, in his mind, everything is fixed. It was one of those things that people did not understand when he tried to explain things to them in his way with his clever words and deductions. They did not understand that _all_ paths were fixed in time and he could see them all because he was beyond human, he was something different and their human eyes could not comprehend that. His eyes sought out each human thread and each string that emanated from the human heart and looped with others, creating a tangled web that he had to walk through every day.

It was more than just a jumbled mess, he could see every life, the shadows etched in time. At crime scenes the picture was painted, like a reel of film played slowly, frame by frame by frame, overlaid in a path that was clearly visible to him and no one else. It should have made him feel special, feel honored, but instead people called him 'freak' and 'psychopath'. The only person who could see him for what he was, the only person who cared, was ironically a doctor.

"_Quickly, back to Baker Street,_" was all he ever had to say and he was running again, a companion on his heels. He was taller than he was used to, and running was so much easier, so much more like flying while his doctor jogged in double-time, always by this side and always his equal, even if he did not say so as often as he should; he was bitter and old, beyond outward praise, either giving or receiving. It shocked him whenever his companion issued any sort of compliment.

_This_ doctor helped people, helped _him_, and that was so important; without companions he would lose his way and when he lost his way things got terribly twisted and the strings would tangle and fray in massive knots around him until he was encased in sorrow and death and only another hand could pull him out. A human hand. Humans were silly and frail and had too many emotions but he was childish, stubborn, and too uncaring to last long on his own. He needed to be kept in check and because the world was funny, he was given a doctor to care for him. When he was so bound in his misery there was his doctor there to help him untangle the mass of emptiness that threatened to swallow him. This doctor saved people and loved people and the people he saved and loved had the courtesy to love him back when he was finished; it always seemed that when he was the Doctor, the people he loved died and the people he saved hated him. His companions loved him but they always left.

He used to have so many companions call him that, so many people who knew his secret, and then he was stuck, he could not move forward or backward and this was his last life. This universe was his own and it was strange, to be sure, but here he was consigned to stay. There were so many ways that he could have gone but this was the best, he knew it had to be, because there were people here whom he cared about. Here, he could protect people because he had never been known in this place as the Doctor. It was a release from all responsibility and all his past mistakes because here he was someone else entirely. And more importantly, his doctor had promised not to leave.

He wished that he could prove his companion's true worth but that method was lost to him; John would never get to see new planets and he would never sail among the stars. There were times when he thought to tell his doctor everything, all the ways he could see the lives and choice of others, how he had once traveled galaxies, how he had once been in love hundreds and hundreds of years ago. He had told his doctor, once, when he was stumbling drunk and all he got was a smile.

"I knew you couldn't be from this world," was all he got by way of conversation before his doctor had wrestled him to the sofa with strict orders to sleep it off and _text_ him next time, he was worried sick with not knowing. It was funny, he had laughed until he cried, and cried until he felt sick; he was always telling his companions not to run off on their own and do stupid things and here was his doctor throwing it back at him, giving him a sobering taste of his own medicine.

His doctor had gone up the steps to his room, turning off all the lights after leaving a glass of water within the fallen man's reach. He waited until his doctor's breathing had evened out before rising on decidedly unsteady feet and wobbling to the window.

There, barely visible behind all the other stars and the light pollution that poured off of cities, he could just see the faint gleam of orange that he had charted every time he looked out the window; the light was growing dimmer and dimmer by the night and his gut clenched. By his best estimate, he had a few more years of looking at that miniscule pin-prick of light before it faded from the sky. He could never go back, he did not have the means to go back, and he did not have the means to save that light. This was the end of time, the end of his time. His home was gone and his planet was no more than an echo of a shadow of a memory of the past. This place was not his home and was not his world and here he would die among the humans he had spent so much of his precious lives saving.

This was his last life, the very last one and he would outlive any friends he had here, he would outlive his Torchwood appointed 'guardian', that poor man had no idea just who he was. He would pass them all in age and fall into obscurity until the day his body got too frail for existing any longer; maybe he would chose to end it sooner than later, he could if he wanted, but he remembered the hatred of being ancient beyond reason and how easy it was to become young again. But this time there would be no regeneration, no ancient genetic magic that would revive him. It would not be waking up in a new body. He did not know what it would be, but he knew it would be...he knew it would be final.

He had never been ginger (there was that once case, though), he had always been rude, he always had two good and strong legs that kept him running away from anything and everything. His mind had always been sharp and he had always had good enough friends.

"All the time I spent saving this bloody planet," he rested his cheek on the window, eyes fixated on his long-gone home. "Mine was forgotten dust."

His doctor had been right, he was not from this planet and he would never fit in, no matter how hard he tried. Something hard-wired humans to keep away from him; maybe it was the thrum of his two hearts, maybe it was his over-all nature. He never really had a chance at a human life. _Freak, sociopath, psychopath, he doesn't have friends, you should stay away from him, might be dangerous... _There was nothing his doctor could to to fix two broken hearts and he himself had no choice but to wait it out and suffer the pain alone. And he always ended up alone.

"I was never meant to die here," he murmured against the glass, never seeing his doctor in the reflection. "I was never meant to..."

The tears he finally allowed to fall rolled down the glass like rain. High above and impossibly far away, the dying orange light of all that was his life flickered and winked.


	2. Muller Lyer

Muller-Lyer

He loves seeing their eyes the very first time the step inside his magical blue box, the thing that was so much bigger, infinitely bigger, on the inside. They simply cannot believe their eyes for those first novel seconds. Because they believe certain things and trust their eyes too much. Because they are only human. Because they never really look and never really _see_. The first time he opened the doors and lures them inside, tempting them with wonders untold and magic beyond their imagination and everything the world had to offer, everything in this universe and beyond.

He fancied that he could see the cosmos reflected in their irises, the flashes of gold like shooting stars, the blue-green swirls of galaxies, the brown haze that surrounded constellations, black holes in their dilated pupils swallowed it all in, greedy and ceaseless. Anything that got too close was sucked in and became compressed into a thin strand of memory that jolted into their small human minds. The whole of eternity shone upon their faces.

Always so wide; he did not think that humans could open their eyes so wide but they always surprised him. He loved it, the way the stared around them, spinning around and around and around before they turned to him with tears in their eyes. The sheer wonder of it all was upon them and they looked to him like he was a god; he was a god, in this place, his magical blue box, and they worshiped him for that little while, until they became used to it.

Only, he never really gave them the chance to become too accustomed. There had been a few of his companions who had really gotten the hang of his box, but he had panicked (there was no other word for it) and then they were gone soon after. It was too much, to share all his secrets and lies and dreams with the these people who came and went all the time. It was his doing, the coming and going, the loneliness and shame of guilt; their hearts were broken and their minds instantly dulled and there was no undoing it. The second it was over, their eyes became dead and they realized that, the whole time, they had been seeing things wrong; their world was narrow and boring. His, the one he had briefly shared with them, the one filled with wonder and magic and danger, was so much more.

His companions had become bigger on the inside to take it all in...and then there was not enough to fill the gaping hole he left behind. It was always like this, always and even now, as he stood watching his doctor grieve.

Was this how they all felt? This man had never seen the cosmos, never seen the stars up close, had never witnessed the birth and death of a star, the creation of a new planet...all this man had seen was London, his London, and now- maybe he would be fine. Maybe he would continue on like it was _his_ London, maybe he would have no trouble filling the hole in his heart.

The reflection in the shiny black stone of his headstone told otherwise; he saw the same grief in those eyes, the same pain of leaving that they all suffered but this was more acute and it broke him inside and out. Sometimes, he though, sometimes it hurts both parties. It had hurt both him and his granddaughter, it had hurt him and the thorny flower of a girl, it had hurt him and the girl who had waited all her life for him to come back. He was convinced they were safer now, that they were all fine.

But his doctor was different; he had literally saved his life, plucked him from the ordinary and placed him on the pedestal of extraordinary and he walked among gods and devils and solved the mysteries of London as the others had solved the mysteries of the stars. His doctor was human and strong, even for the species, but he had been broken one too many times. He had seen his friend lying, apparently dead and bleeding, on a stained sidewalk and something inside him cracked into a million irreparable shards. It made him wonder if it was not his magical blue box, gone forever, that changed these small people. Maybe it was him. If it was, then letting them go was better than stringing them along through the danger and pain and grief.

Sometimes, saving people he cared for, loved, cherished, involved leaving them. He could not fathom their pain.

And, sometimes, sometimes he wondered what it would be like to be them, utterly alone and empty.


	3. Ebbinghaus' Curve

Ebbinghaus' Curve

He can never really forget, not really; all their faces are permanently burned into his eyelids when he decides that sleep is necessary. It frightens him so much that he stops sleeping and no one says a word if his skin is a little more chalky or the rings around his eyes are a little more pronounced. Not even his doctor; the poor man had given up on him as he became more and more withdrawn. The only safe place was inside himself. It was also the most dangerous place because, inside, he could ruminate and die each time they did, cry each time they did, suffer each time they did.

It had been so long that he could not remember if forgetting was a facility he still possessed, it it had a tendency to occur immediately and rapidly...or not at all. Things that are unimportant are quickly forgotten to make room for more important things. In an instant, his mind flashed back to a case a few months ago; a man had forgotten everything. He woke up one morning, not knowing where he was, that he had a family, that he had a job and a life. The man up and left, packing a small bag and moving to a new city, starting a new family. His doctor had been saddened, both by the man's forgetting and or the old family that would suffer, the new family that might suffer the same.

He did not have the heart to admit that he envied the man.

Maybe if he could forget those first thousand or so years he would not feel so burdened. If he could just will them into the dark recessed of his mind, banish them like light banishes the dark...but it was impossible. For every new pleasant memory he formed there were a thousand negative, hateful, hurtful thoughts to swallow it as it formed, tainting it for all eternity.

Sometimes he wanted it to be over, but he was good at hiding it away, excellent at keeping his true nature from the people around him. Hiding from everyone except...except his companion.

His doctor had hidden the gun after he had caught him staring at it for long periods of time; his eyes had been dull, frighteningly empty; he did not doubt that his doctor saw him for what he really was. The man was clever, painfully so, and he was acutely aware that _this_ man would have thrived among the stars and swirling cosmos that he could never go back to.

Once, he had suddenly gone out, leaving his companion behind; he had done this so many times before that the cried of protest and confusion were easy to ignore. He still had the keys, he always had the keys, and they rested against his pale skin, nestled between his twin hearts and warmed by their hatefully steady syncopation. They throbbed painfully by the time he had run full tilt all the way to where his blue box had left him alone, where he had watched and felt his first and oldest friend die.

Shaking fingers flipped the latch, twisted a key, and opened the blue door. There was nothing inside anymore, just a shell of what had once been a magnificent vessel that had carried him to the end and back, time and time again. She had made him both happy and sad, content and frustrated, and he wanted nothing more than to feel the hum of her engine and the thrill of take-off again. Slumping against the far wall, he curled into the cramped space, wishing it was bigger on the inside once more.

He closed and locked the door so no one would see him cry.

XXX

His companion said nothing as he stumbled in, well past nightfall.

"Another late night?"

Ignoring the question, he fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, pulling open the collar with his stiff fingers. "I want you to have this."

This time, his companion turned around, now confused and concerned. "Is everything alright? Are _you_ alright?" He punctuated the words, slipping into doctor mode.

He had the keys in his hand, now fumbling with the clasp on the chain as he frantically tried to take one off. "I needyou to have this, please. I _need_ you to have it."

Pressing the small silver key into his companion's hand, he slumped onto the floor, collapsing onto his knees. "Please, take it. Always have it on you."

All he received was a blank stare as his companion rested his hands on his shoulders. "_I_ need you to calm down, Sherlock. You aren't making any sense."

His face fell; of course he was not making any sense. The key did nothing but unlock an old, broken blue part of his mind, his hearts, his soul. What use was that key to anyone? No one would ever understand what that key meant, how fantastic, how much of a privilege it was to hold it, the magic it had once unlocked. He was being stupid; giving a companion the key meant something.

It didn't mean anything to anyone anymore. And it would never mean anything to anyone but him. He rose suddenly, angry with himself and the world; damn the fates, his companion could do what he wanted with that stupid little key; it was worthless to the both of them.

He could hear his companion calling out after him in concern, but he had already shut the door to his bedroom; closing himself off from the outside so he could be miserable within.

XXX

Weeks later, he had almost forgotten about the disaster with the keys and the shame he had felt after; it felt so strange to forget...well, nearly forget.

The had been running, always running, and his companion was slumped against the nearest wall, catching his breath. When he looked over to speak, he saw a glint of something against his companion's neck; a chain, the one used for dog tags and other identifying necessities. His companion caught his eye and tugged, metal rattling against the ball chain and clinking against small steel plates.

"You looked so broken the other night, I figured this would help fix...whatever it is that makes you so sad all the time."

On the chain, nestled against his companion's old memories was a key, _the_ key, and suddenly he felt overwhelmingly happy.


	4. Correlation Causation

He had noticed that when he was attached, there was less pain. There was less pain, fewer tears, and he did not hate himself with the burning that consumed his brain, his heart. When he had a companion, he was whole. They taught him so much about humanity and what it meant to _feel_ like he was one of them, like he belonged in their beautifully brief lives.

Often, very often, he wondered what it would be like to live once, for an unspecified amount of time. What it would be like to grow old and relish waking each morning to breathe another day, to have that last cup of tea before bed because, who knew, it might just be the last bloody cup of tea you ever had. He knew that each person he met was fragile, was so delicate that he himself was afraid to break them. But these humans were so bold and brave and beautiful. They were far more audacious than anything that insubstantial had any right to be.

He had seen humans face extraordinary threats without even blinking an eye, just because they thought it was the right thing to do. Bravery and stupidity had a tendency to go hand in hand, but he had seen bravery fueled by fear as well. Companions who were terrified, more terrified than children afraid of the dark, step up to his side because they wanted him to love them and keep them and never let them fall into the darkness of space and die gasping among the stars.

They were so brief that they could never not be beautiful. They were fire and stability and morals.

They made him remember that life was worth living.

His doctor was the same, really. He had never had to face angels and burning sentient suns or shadows that devoured flesh, but he had seen the wrong end of a gun, the wrong end of a fist, the wrong end of life that should have been more full and satisfying than chasing petty criminals and solving small crimes.

His doctor was secure in his position, in his new role in the world, and was settling into his odd routine quite nicely. More nicely than he had ever done in his long, endlessly dull life. He had never liked routine, had never been a secure person.

He had always been afraid of settling down. He'd disliked academy, he had disliked any sort of structure. HE hated, absolutely could not stand to be in one place for too long. He had nearly quit the day he did not get his flying license, the happy day when all his friends joked and laughed about all the places they would go in space and all the memories they would travel to in time. They could go anywhere they dreamed and he was stuck on the ground.

So he ran away, the petulant child, and stole a ship. He stole something that had been cast aside, just as he had, something that still had life an hope and wonder. She showed him the stars and he traveled with her always.

"Are you alright?"

He jerked to attention, hand falling from the thin chain around his neck, the one he always kept hidden with scarves and starched collars. "I'm fine."

His doctor did not question, he did not disrupt his train of thought; he merely made sure he remained in this world and did not dwell to heavily on the past, on death and dying and pain and never again, never again, I'll die here alone, just like always-

"It's only..." his doctor hesitated. "You were crying."

"You are mistaken," he replied, wiping away a tear and flicking it into empty space with a dismissive sleight of hand; it glistened in the air as it arced away, away, away before spattering and soaking into the carpet. It reminded him of fragile little glass humans who burned with light. "I was remembering."

And it was not a lie; he had been remembering the only secure attachment he had ever had, out of all his companions, the one who had never left, had never died, had always come back and sheltered him and loved him and ran away with him nestled close. But she was gone now, her clever body only a shell. Maybe, someday, he would take his doctor to see the inside of her, the remains.

On a good day, you could see them. On a bad day, she was an empty box with a pretty blue face.

He needed to stop thinking. He needed to remind himself that he did have security now, that he was adjusted to his new, human life. He needed to push down the sad hate rage fire tears tears tears that threatened to burst form his hearts every second of every day. He needed to lock it all up inside where no one could see. He needed, he needed, he needed...

What he really needed, he supposed, was that same sense of security.

His doctor was a good substitute, but the man was only human. Humans died, humans had little whimseys that led them off his path and across that of another, more interesting, more stable member of their own fascinating race and then they were gone. Who was he to demand they stay, who was he to not let them be completely happy, like he could never be again?

His doctor was good, but human.

And humans changed him.

Sometimes, though, not for the better. Sometimes, all he could feel was their sadness.

His long fingers found the key that dangled between his two hearts and he turned away from his doctor's curious stare to face the streets of London. He pressed the key to his lips and closed his eyes, picturing the stars and all their majesty.

"I'll come back, darling, I promise. My darling, my dear, my clever girl..."


	5. Correlation Causation, Cont

_a person in a secure attachment can change insecure people; crrelation causation_

The secret is how to die. He knows this, he feels it every day. And it terrifies him when it comes time to jump. He is looking down at his doctor and he wonders exactly what it feels like to fall and hit the ground, the solid ground, the soul of every living thing on this planet.

His mobile is pressed to his cheek and he is happy, for a brief second, that no one can see his tears; they stick to his pale, pale cheeks but he keeps his voice even, for the sake of his companion. He always had to be the strong one, the one to make the decisions, call the shots. This was his choice, this was to keep them all safe, his friends, his companions.

For a moment, he wished that he had never met any of them, that he had died with a needle in his veins, died all those years ago in a filthy gutter not knowing where or who he really was, _what_ he really, truly was. He had changed so many lives through pointless attachments

But then he swallowed hard and spoke to his doctor. This doctor helped people, helped him; it made him proud that someone did good on this dark little sphere. It made him proud that John carried the title in ways he never could.

"This is my note."

He always left them and it was always for their own good; it had never occurred to him that he had saved them, just as they saved him. He never realized that they were built around him and that, once he was gone, they were more hollow than when he had arrived. John could survive without him, he would be better without him, this was the best thing for both of them and for the world.

This was the moment. The last of the Time Lords, falling, fallen, gone.

"That's what people do, isn't it? Leave a note?"

In the end, he could not even die alone. He would subject his closest friend to watch his death, watch him fall and hit the ground and shatter his body with a fleshy thud, reminiscent of the sound a cleaver makes in a butcher's shop when it connects with a hunk of meat. Because that is what he was, at this point: meat. He was no longer a Time Lord, he had lost all his lives _not lost, never lost, never wasted, never a breath he regretted, I don't want to go, not yet-_

In the end, because this was the end, he could feel the tears on his face because there was one thing he did regret: that he had asked John to watch. "Keep your eyes fixed on me, can you do that?"

On the other end of the line, his doctor was begging him, pleading with him not to jump, not to fly, not to fall and race the wind and hit the ground and-

He knew why it needed to be done, but guilt sickened him. The last memory John would have of him alive would be of him flailing through the air just before...just before...

"Goodbye, John." _I wish I had been able to take you with me, through the stars. You love the stars, you would have loved being among them in ways you can only dream of, John, and it could have been that way. If only I hadn't been stupid, if only my blue box were alive, if only if only if only-_

Then there was wind, rushing wind and he decided it would be better to close his eyes.

He felt a change in the air; it was thick, sticky with a smell that brought back more recent memories of danger. The chemical smell was getting stronger and stronger, mingling with damp and dust and _ancient_ things. Suddenly, he opened his eyes and fell, fell, fell...

...fell among familiar shelves, familiar books, the titles flying past his eyes as he soared closer and closer to the dangerous smell, splashing into the pool.

A panicked struggle followed, his coat shed as it dragged him down, followed by his shoes; they drifted in slow motion to the tiled bottom but he ignored them, frantically wriggling free of his suit jacket as he kicked his way to the surface, lungs screaming and his hearts beating faster and faster. When he emerged, it was with breathless laughter.

"Oh my old girl, my perfect, wonderful, fantastic, stupendous, _glorious _old girl!" He crowed it at the top of his lungs, heaving himself up and over the nearest edge and splaying himself on the warm tile surrounding the pool. "My girl, my girl, my girl!" He rolled over and pressed kisses to the floor, laughing between them and pushing himself up.

"You came back for me, you did it!"

"Have I told you enough that I loved you? _Love _you?" He threw back his head and laughed, howled with joy and he raced through the shelves, long fingers scraping against the book spines, the metal shelves catching and bending his hands back before his ligaments and tendons snapped them forward again, his body working, his body running.

It had been years, ages, _eons_ since he had felt this good. This was nothing like existing, this was living, this was being. His two hearts thrummed and his pulse raced faster and faster.

"John," he cried, reaching the door. "I have to go back for John!"

It took him a moment to find the control room, scrambling down hall after hall, but soon he and his old girl were soaring through time.

He was alive, _alive_, and it had never felt so good.


	6. Classically Conditioned

Immediately after his box had picked him up, he doused himself in blood and demanded, pleaded, insisted, that she take him to exactly the same place and time so he could finish the illusion, seamlessly and effortlessly. She, miraculously, complied. He hit the pavement, winded, and shut down his respiratory system, the bypass kicking in.

_Breathing, breathing is boring._

He had been so out of it, after that. They had buried him. Thank the stars for that. The second the box was in the ground he fumbled with his transporter, an earlier model of Jack's that he had...acquired some time ago. One turn left, one turn right, click.

Back in his box, he was laying on his back, staring at the high ceiling that loomed high above his head; glowing with some strange illumination. It had changed since he had regenerated last and it was unfamiliar to him, as perfect and homey as it still was. It was more of a warm fireplace glow and the struts were swirled metal, wood, and coral; they rose up like wrought iron spires into the gloom.

Standing slowly, he made sure everything was still in the same place and worked the same way; his eyes still blinked, his mouth still made the usual shapes required for speech, his legs had let him stand, his arms still swung at the shoulder, his hands still clenched. He wiped the blood off his head, running one of his delightfully long-fingered hands through dark curls to keep them from matting together. His hand came away sticky and red; the Doctor wrinkled his nose.

"Thanks, old girl. Do you think you could-" the box gave a shudder, and made the familiar noises of an engine starting to life.

His beautiful blue box had brought him back to the streets of London, some back alley where no one but cats could find him, and he had knicked a paper from some store. Twenty-thirteen. He had been gone for...maybe a year at the most, give or take a few months. It would not be enough.

He had had to learn about emotions from his human companions and it that not been easy; there were so many little nuances, little ticks in the human psyche that, at first, he found it impossible to distinguish between emotions. Of course, he had his own reactions to things that were unusual, but equally appropriate in numerous situation. This divergent thinking had gotten him into trouble before: there were different kinds of smiles, different kinds of tears, different kinds of sighs.

Eventually, after eons, ages, millennia, he could read humans like most of them read books (he says most because there are those awful television shows, the literacy of the cast members dubious even to his keen mind and sharp ear). Now he knows the difference between shoulders slumped in exhaustion and shoulders slumped in defeat, in grief, in sadness. Now he knows the difference between stares of thought and stares of sad memories.

Now he knows that John is not ready for him to be back, not yet.

He noticed, as he followed him, that the man was haggard, tired, the black smudges under his eyes indicated a severe lack of sleep, the resurgence of nightmares. It took a moment to remind himself of why and he only remembered because of what he was looking at.

John, shoulders rolled forward against grief and memory, stood above a sleek granite headstone that rested at the head of a grave. An empty grave, but he did not know that, he thought it held the body of his first friend, best, closest, only friend in London. In that grave, so John thought, was the still body that had once run across the city at such a breathtaking pace, had thrilled with an abundance of life, had frustrated him to the core and made him want to punch the dark-haired man's teeth in. The doctor was speaking softly, but he heard his name uttered in sadness and frustration. "One more miracle, just for me."

From where he stood, he could see John huddle in on himself more, running his hand over the smooth surface of the stone. "_Anything John, name it."_

"Don't be..." he choked, and he could hear the swallowing of tears. "Dead."

He pursed his lips, turning away to give John a moment of privacy before striding away.

He would come back, when John was ready.


	7. Dissociate Fugue

The hardest part was explaining it all to John. He had thought that it would be easier, would be less painful, but he was very, very, extremely wrong. What made it hard was that he did not really know why he had done it.

"It was my last life, _this_ is my last life, and I landed on Bad Wolf Bay. The only place that exists in this universe and this one alone. I wanted to leave again, go galavanting among the stars, as I had always done, but my box brought me to London. And then it...it died. Part of me died. I felt it leave me, John, I felt every single fiber of my being dull into the gray matter of humans- oh, don't look at me like that, you wouldn't understand, no really you wouldn't. So I knew that here, there was no me. Here, I could do what I wanted."

John blinked. "What do you mean 'here'?"

"Would you believe me if I said there were parallel worlds?"

"I might do, yeah."

"This is a parallel world with a few unique difference. For example, there is a human version of one of my past selves on this Earth. There is also Bad Wolf Bay."

The doctor was silent, staring at him like he had just now realized how mad his once dead flatmate sounded. In truth, dissociative fugues were a kind of madness; leaving one day, leaving all you have ever known and then foraging a new identity as though the other had never existed. He had his reasons, oh he did and there were many, but they were all so strange to people who did not understand.

"Why create a new persona?"

Explaining was painful. Explaining to John was worse. Because in this world, there had been no Conan Doyle to write the beloved classic detective character of Sherlock Holmes. How was he to explain that to John? That in that parallel world he was words on a page, where he was flesh and blood in this one? He would tell him later, if at all. Instead, he put that issue aside.

"Because it was easier than trying to change myself."

His doctor gave him a little smile, his eyes crinkling up at the corners in a familiar way that he found he had been missing; it was humorous but it was also knowing."You can have two personas, Sherlock. There can be two parts of you-"

"What would you know?" He snapped. His doctor leveled him with a look.

Oh. _Oh_. "I can be the army doctor when I need to be. I can be everyone's favorite GP as well. One created the other and if there wasn't Captain Watson there would have never been Doctor Watson. Do you see, Sherlock? You can do it, could have done."

He pursed his lips, understanding but yet unwilling to admit his defeat on the matter just now; his doctor would know and would see it. He would also say nothing, he would only look a little more smug and _he_ would allow it. His doctor was right, after all.

"I still would have had to pick a name. And if I hadn't been 'Sherlock Holmes', we would not have met." It was entirely true. The laws of causation would not have allowed them to meet under any other circumstances; it was pure happenstance that there _was_ a John Watson here and the universe made the rest, just so.

"Pick a name?"

This was getting tedious; he did not like explaining all of this, every single detail. All he had been planning to tell was about how he had finished off everyone who was after his friends in this world, how he had survived. But, apparently, telling John that a blue box snatched him out of the air was just an opportunity to ask more questions and delve too deep.

"Yes. I didn't really have a name before-"

"Didn't have a _name_?"

"I had a name, John," he snapped. "I had a name back when I was a child on a planet with two suns and an orange sky. Back when I looked into the untempered schism and knew the world. But then I ran away and stole my granddaughter. I could not use that name anymore, I did not deserve it."

A few blinks later, John spoke. "You. You had a granddaughter."

"Out of _all_ the things I just told you, that is the most unbelievable part of this adventure?" His doctor always shocked him, but this was something he had not been expecting. "You won't ask my name?"

He shook his head, a gentle, exasperated few side-to-sides that revealed he was smiling with his blue eyes closed. "If you had wanted to tell me, you would have. I can wait, Sherlock. I've waited three years for you to come back, didn't I?"

"You're lucky," he said sadly, leaning back. When he received a wicked glare, he could only sigh and explain more. "People have waited longer for me to come back. And what made you so sure I was coming back? You saw me die."

This time, there was a genuine smile; no pain and no grief was masked in his doctor's face now. "You wouldn't just leave, you bloody idiot. If anyone could have come back from the dead, it would be you."

"Would you believe I've done it twelve times? Actually died, mind you, not just faking it."

"I wouldn't put it past you."


	8. Engram

It was not something he was aware of on a conscious level, but as John walked the streets of London, his hand sometimes strayed to his dog tags, fingers fiddling until the rubbed the small silver key that rested closest to his chest. It typically happened when he walked past the store of an old bookseller with his cart; he had not noticed the man in years previous, perhaps because he had been too busy running past it.

Whenever he touched the key, he felt odd. Like there were things he should remember but could not. Like there were things, traces, of people and places that he needed to know and see in his mind...but that were too hazy and old. He knew they were not his, but he also knew they were important.

A book on the cart caught his eye and he stopped suddenly, picking it up. The old man did not move from where he was sitting on his stool. A child's scribbles adorned the cover under an unimportant title, but it was the drawing that mattered. It was the hasty crayon sketch that made him stop and it was not because of the drawings that adorned his office. He saw a wall of faces, all looking sad and scared, all drawn by a child's trembling hand.

The book under that had a gas mask on the spine and it made him shudder, thinking of the dark. His hand went to the key and he held it between finger and thumb as he rifled through the other books. Some made him feel nothing, others would call up strange memories that he did not ever remember having. John's mind had wandered and, suddenly, he became aware of himself again.

In his hand was a blue book of such a shade that he dropped it, startled; he could not even bring himself to leaf through it. Instead, he took a few steps back from the cart, feeling the need to run. Calming his feet and racing heart, he stumbled away.

The next day, he was walking back from the surgery and the blue book was on top, tempting him to look inside. Instead, he shoved it aside, looking deeper into the cart.

A book of Shakespeare made him smile strangely; he had hated it in school but for some reason, Love's Labors Lost was not as evil as it used to be. Just below that was a Venice travel guide that John instantly set aside; he would never travel there, but he did not know quite why...

There was a history book that made him feel nostalgic, made him think of years ago when someone he might have known corrected textbooks and angered teachers. A book on supremely accurate clocks had him smiling again.

Quietly, the old bookseller rose and John glanced over; he was helping another person with a selection, a small blonde woman with close-set eyes was with a tall, spiky haired man. He gave them a second glance, thumbing the key, before he went home.

The bookseller did not look at him as he went, but he knew exactly the path that the doctor would travel, how many steps he would climb, and that he could slump into the high-backed chair to the left of the fireplace. And that he would be back tomorrow.

He was not wrong.

The next day, John was back and, this time, he picked up the blue book and rifled through the pages. They were blank, of course, he had made sure the pages were blank. Only a few words were inscribed in the front, by the Doctor's hasty, but still neat, hand.

_Property of: Doctor John Hamish Watson_

He did not see the words, at least not yet. And he would not until he was sitting in his chair at Baker Street; he would drop the book and come running back. All of this would take about an hour.

So he waited, rummaging through his books and stumbling about like an old man, biding his sweet time. An hour later, no more and no less, John Watson barreled around a corner and crashed right into him, panting heavily. He paused for a moment, roving over the face he had known so long ago before ripping away the false beard, the thick eyebrows, hands smudging away the drawn-on lines and pockmarks. Beneath it all, beneath all the makeup and hair, was a face he knew and a face he was not sure he was ready to see again.

Sure enough, after some of the powder was shaken out and all the mask wiped away, there was Sherlock Holmes, his dead friend. But there was something else in this glazs eyes, a new person behind the familiar face.

"Sherlock-"

"Yes. And no."

"And no?"

"There is a lot to explain to you, John. Quite a bit."

Suddenly, there was a blow to his lower jaw, a solid left hook that he completely expected; the only thing that surprised him was that the fist did not come sooner.

AN: _engram; physical memory trace, implicit memory; memories of which people are not consciously aware_


	9. Human Tendencies

_Average people get thrown into extraordinary situations._

He found he could not lie to John about his past companions and he told about them all. Fondly remembered bravery, stupidity, stubbornness, love, friendship. He cried for Adric, Susan, Peri, Rose, Tegan, Donna. Smiled for Martha, Jack, Mickey... there were more reasons to cry than smile and that made him even more melancholy.

"It sounds like they were extraordinary," his doctor murmured, seeming not to realize that he had already proven himself as an extraordinary companion. He found himself shaking his head, wiping away some stray tears.

"You make it sound as though you aren't."

John shrugged. "I'm not, though, am I? They've fought alien invasions, saved your life in more ways than one-"

"They were simply ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. And you, blogger, seem to have forgotten that you've saved me as well. In more ways than one. My thirteenth life was almost second shortest."

His doctor went silent, settling against the door jamb to stare at him with warm blue eyes, encouraging him to continue.

"This is my last life," he said as they sat on the lip of his blue box, feet dangling off into space as the stars winked and flared around them. "If something happens to me now, it's all over. There is no coming back."

"So now you're human?"

He scoffed. "No, I am not _human_. I have two hearts and a respiratory bypass system, how could I ever be human?"

John looked at him, suddenly startled; he had only looked so shocked when he had thrown open the doors to the box and the chill of space had come whirling in, along with some stardust. His doctor had gasped, grabbed the nearest surface and closed his eyes, refusing to believe that, if he let go, he would not be dragged out into the empty void.

"You have how many hearts?"

A smirk crossed his face. "Why do you think I never had you check my pulse, listen to my lungs?"

"Well," his doctor coughed awkwardly to cover up his silence. "Now that I know the secret, can I have a listen?"

Automatically, his eyes rolled. "Really, John, just take my word for it."

"It's not that I don't believe you but...well, medically, how does it work? Do they beat in tandem, or is it every other? Or is it each to his own side? Wait, is it-"

Without thinking, he laughed, a loud and full laugh that echoed in the room, bouncing off the controls and gleaming consoles. "Fine, fine, if you really want to."

He expected John to run for his stethoscope but he was wrong; the doctor shoved his shoulder forward so that he could easily rest and ear against the narrow back. The long coat was hung up after his doctor had gone into hysterics after seeing how many other regenerations had worn something similar. It was not his fault that coats made him look taller and, well, they made him look good. He found himself breathing deeper and his eyes closed.

There was stardust still coming in, swirling about on little eddies and brushing their skin; some burned a line across his cheek and it made his breath catch. Deciding to unnerve his friend, he let his bypass kick in, eliminating his need to breathe. It took John a minute to realize that anything was wrong.

"Stop holding your breath, stupid."

Without drawing breath, he smiled. "I'm not holding my breath."

"Then stop not breathing."

It took air to laugh.


End file.
